Every large publicly traded company has material weakness in their internal controls, but they are very rarely identified because of collusion between External Auditors, Management, and Internal Audit...It must have been a pretty big issue for KPMG to call it out. I would hate to be the person who messed up the review control.

If you look at their SEC filings, the risks of not being able to refinance debt are unfounded and make no sense given the companies strong back log, decent cash position, and dividend suspension. Banks will be lining up to help SDRL refinance/rollover debt. "Fleet management" is a potential problem, but I think that the shipyards in question will be amenable to holding off shipment and enforcing payments for 6-12 months if the market ends up being as soft as everyone thinks it will be. One thing to remember is that no one has a crystal ball, but the data suggests that oil will bounce back within the next 6-24 months. When that happens, SDRL will be in an even stronger position than it was a year ago and will be trading in the high 30s.

Good point. I would think 1-2 years of depressed prices would have some effect, but probably not a monumental one. World population is growing at fast pace, more and more people across the globe are obtaining the means to buy cars and other products made with/that depend on oil.

Is it just me, or are the vast majority of articles coming out on SDRL lacking in any meaningful analysis? This article probably took 15 minutes to write...

Solar usage will reduce the need for oil!? What are you talking about? Heating oil is rarely ever used to generate electricity, which is what solar panels are currently used for. Where is the Quality Control SA?

The post isn't the issue, and, at first glance, I do agree with the sentiment of your post. However, posts like this,

"No one knows for sure the lawyer will do in the post since he knows next to nothing about Ebola, the scientific basis for the spread of highly contagious diseases and infection control protocols and procedures. He probably looks good on television, though."

are childish and immature. Plus, you have no basis to make that statement. Do you know exactly what he will be doing? It looks like he will be a liason between the different government agencies involved with containing Ebola. It seems like more of an admin/management job than anything.

It would have been more credible to cite sources from people who actually know about the situation, rather than just spouting off personal views on the matter.

At its core Beta is just the slope of the price movement between two securities. Get price action from Yahoo Finance for SPY versus an equity over certain time periods, dump it into Excel and do the calculation yourself.

Trust me, it will help you understand it a lot more. Beta isn't the best indicator of risk anyway. I would look at the standard deviation of price action instead. That is a true indicator of volatility/risk.

Beta can be calculated using different time frames. The time frame depends on the person calculating Beta. I think that, generally, Beta is usually calculated based on 10 years of data on yahoo finance etc. ... Someone please correct me if that is off. For my own models, I calculate Beta using the timeframe that I plan on holding a stock. There is a lot of subjectivity to this calculation. Good luck.

Dividend growth investing is for lazy people who want to take the "Stress" out of investing. Growth beats dividends every time. I love seeing all of these negative comments on here; it really goes to show how irrational humans can be. Bottom line, do what you are most comfortable with. I manage my mother in laws IRA account and it is mainly based on dividends but I also monitor price movements and buy/sell stocks based of technicals and fundamentals. Maybe retirees would be better suited to this style since it will tax their mental capacity and keep them from falling into mental stagnation...

I think it is moronic that the taxpayers have to continue to fund Lockheed Martin's incompetence. Time for Lockheed Martin to eat some of the excess costs that have developed as a direct result of their horrible management of the development of this aircraft.